AMD claims major Ryzen OEM wins, dates Vega's unveiling

AMD has taken to the stage at Computex 2017 with promises of a full Vega graphics processor unveiling at the SIGGRAPH conference, partnerships with major OEMs on Ryzen-powered desktops, and a launch date for the first servers powered by the company's Epyc - formerly Naples - processors.

'We celebrate 30 years of AMD in Taiwan at Computex this year with great momentum around our new high-performance computing and graphics products,' enthused AMD president and chief executive Lisa Su following the company's keynote speech at the Computex tradeshow this week. 'At Computex we highlighted the next wave of AMD products that will come to market, including our upcoming Epyc family of processors for datacentres, high-end Radeon Vega-based graphics cards, and new AMD Ryzen Threadripper and Ryzen mobile processors. We were thrilled to be joined by customers and partners including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo to showcase their latest AMD Ryzen-powered PCs.'

Addressing the latter point first, AMD was joined at the event by partners showcasing Ryzen-powered desktop machines and, in one case, a desktop-replacement laptop, the Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix GL702ZC featuring an eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen processor originally designed for desktop use. While only Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo were specifically called out by AMD during the event, the company promised that 'all of the top global PC OEMs expect to have Ryzen-based designs in the market by end of Q2 2017.'

'The reception and response from both consumers and enthusiasts for Ryzen has been remarkable, and we're just getting started as we roll out a full line-up of Ryzen processors that deliver exceptional performance for premium and high-performance desktops and notebooks,' claimed Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of AMD's Compute and Graphics business group. 'Additionally, the ecosystem enthusiasm is evident as we start to see the first wave of Ryzen-based systems from top OEMs join the hundreds of motherboards and system integrator systems already in-market. It's clear that the industry and consumers were hungry for the innovation Ryzen has brought back to the PC market.'

For server customers, AMD promised that the first off-the-shelf machines featuring its Epyc processors in single- and dual-socket configurations would be hitting the market on June 20th. Those waiting for Threadripper to make an appearance, though, still have a while to wait: Despite showcasing the processor's capabilities in a system running Bethesda's Prey in Ultra HD 4K - aided by a pair of Radeon Vega GPUs running in Crossfire mode - the company had no firm launch date to announce bar the promise that the chips would be arriving 'summer 2017'.

AMD also announced that it would be officially unveiling its consumer-grade Radeon RX Vega graphics card lineup at the SIGGRAPH conference in late July to early August, though would not be pressed on whether this would coincide with a hard launch or simply be a detailing of upcoming products. The company's previously unveiled Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, meanwhile, has received an official launch date of June 27th.

Other announcements from AMD at Computex included the unveiling of a reference design for a Ryzen Mobile ultraportable, boasting four cores and eight threads alongside Vega-architecture graphics in a 15mm-thick chassis alongside new branding - AMD VR Ready Processors and AMD Ryzen VR Ready Premium - for chips targeted at virtual reality use.